<p>We are counting on the month between AP tests and the June ACT to cram additional studying for the test. S has a better handle on the test now, so we are hopeful that he will do well enough to take it only one more time. We have a cutoff for merit aid scholarships that will need to be met before October.</p>
<p>Hi to all the nice CC Parent’s here. Sorry to hear about some rough news…ie: leaks and food poisonings! My holidays have been blessedly uneventful. We gave DD#2 a Kindle and now don’t get to interact with her much. She has always been an extreme reader. She has completed summer applications over the break and suddenly decided to apply for RSI at MIT. It is due there BY 1/14 and she still has to get letters of rec from teachers after school starts back up. I guess it doesn’t hurt to try? </p>
<p>My DD is not planning to take any SAT II’s but I’m not clear on where they might be necessary. It that only for Ivy league? She is not applying or even interested in the Ivies. It would probably be an ego boost for me to know she could get accepted there, but I know that is selfish.</p>
<p>A lot of upper tier schools require SAT II’s, including MIT. Your D can go through her college list and check to be sure she’s okay without them-- as long as she’s quite comfortable with her list. It would be a bummer to get back from MIT having decided it was a top choice and then have to take them. (Conventional wisdom says it’s best to take them right after the course they correspond to-- Chemistry or US History or whatever.)</p>
<p>Wellcome Debbie. SAT IIs are required for many of the top schools, including some state schools. DS has decided not to bother with them, but he did it knowing that he can’t apply to Northwestern (an early favorite), Wesleyan (family alma mater) or Pomona (another early dream school). Here is a link (hopefully up to date) of schools that require or recommend the tests. I am still trying to get him to reconsider so that these schools can stay on the list, but if he doesn’t study for them, it would not matter anyway with poor scores.</p>
<p>[Compass:</a> Admissions Requirements](<a href=“SAT Subject Test Requirements and Recommendations - Compass Education Group”>SAT Subject Test Requirements and Recommendations - Compass Education Group)</p>
<p>Actually that Compass list is out of date (i.e., it still lists Brandeis as requiring 2 SAT II’s, a requirement they dropped in 2008). A better link is to the Common App web site: <a href=“https://www.commonapp.org/CommonApp/DownloadForms.aspx[/url]”>https://www.commonapp.org/CommonApp/DownloadForms.aspx</a> Go to this page and click on Deadlines and Requirements GRID.</p>
<p>Of course, this list only includes those schools that accept the Common App.</p>
<p>Welcome Debbie!</p>
<p>Thank you all, I will check the lists. We really liked the MIT presentation, but we can’t afford it and we don’t qualify as “needy”. Therefore, it’s not under consideration for us. We are only considering the summer program because it is free. DD’s school list is very merit aid driven!</p>
<p>Happy New Year to all. </p>
<p>Sorry to hear about the ceiling leak a few pages back. This happened to us in our old house (shower drain had to be replaced), and then in our next house which was new (cracked waste pipe). Anyway, both dripped into the kitchen, but not on New Year’s Eve. I hope you get it taken care of soon and put it behind you.</p>
<p>debbie7452, sometimes they’ll accept ACT Plus Writing in lieu of subject tests but be sure to on check that with the colleges of interest. there’s a cc thread on parents forum on that topic.</p>
<p>I have middle DD gearing up for the college hunt. Her PSAT 205 and we’re in NJ so no NMF there (last cutoff was around 220 I think), not even sure if that is commended level. DD #1 scored 212 and was commended in NJ. Our middle daughter SAT is 2060 (in line with PSAT score from what I’ve heard) and hopes to improve that by about 100 next time. She did not do any prep for the first one so I suggested that she try doing a few of the practice tests before she takes the next one.</p>
<p>Her expressed interests: Latin, Psycho-linquistics (I don’t even know what THAT is).</p>
<p>One thing I noticed is at the Commended level the NMSF sends a form asking for the students top choice college. I believe they send some kind of communication to the college, but I don’t know if there is any credibility there. One thing I do know is that the school my daughter identified DID come through with their top merit scholarship for her after she actually submitted her application. In other words, I don’t know if the communication from NMSF which must’ve preceded her application by several months was ever connected up with her actual application and essay submission later on.</p>
<p>Another great thing about the school DD #1 decided to go to was that they took the maximum AP credits (she is National AP Scholar) so though she is going back for her 2nd semester she is viewed as a 2nd semester sophmore. She is doing double major so she’ll be there four years regardless to complete both.</p>
<p>That is one piece of advice I think would’ve helped me plan with my DD #1 is to research ahead what the college/university accepts as far as AP class credit. Some only take scores of 4/5 and some cap the number of credits they will take. In retrospect, I think my daughter could’ve passed on AP Calculus (too much angst) because she is not going to school for a math/science based major and so essentially AP Calc was used to satisfy a low level math course requirement at her school. (We still can’t understand why she had so much angst about Calculus in school, but managed a 5 on the exam!)</p>
<p>So, we begin again the planning for DD #2. Anyone got any advise on a LATIN major? Or perhaps a school that has Latin, but lots of other choices so that when she comes to her senses she can easily switch major??? (they don’t call it a dead language for nothing)</p>
<p>Hi Jerseygirl-- Boston College has a Classics major that can be undertaken in Latin and/or Greek. D has a friend who’s bound and determined to go there–maybe she’ll be classmates with your D!</p>
<p>I know people who are classics majors at Uchicago and Brown, they both love it.</p>
<p>Hi Debbie! D is also applying to RSI, and also won’t have letters in hand until Jan 10 when school starts up again at the earliest. I have a feeling I’m going to have to drive out mid-week to FedEx, since kids go back to dorms before teachers return to campus.</p>
<p>Fun, fun. I hope the college aps don’t take this much nagging.</p>
<p>That’s all she wrote for winter break - second semester junior year starts today.</p>
<p>yep, mine just flew out the door. Guess my winter break is over as well, the busy time at my office starts today adn ends in April, so hopefully I will be too busy to worry about much.</p>
<p>Happy Monday. :p</p>
<p>D’s semester ends Jan 28, with exams starting on the 24th. So, we’re not quite at the mid-point yet. I’ll be glad when we get there, though. It will have a “turning the corner” kind of feel to it.</p>
<p>Oops, DS did it again! Did I mention he has time management issues? Last night at supper (after he had not done ANY HW until Saturday for the entire 2 week break) he admitted (sorta, in a roundabout way) that he had made a mistake because he hadn’t realized that he had to do some sort of FCAT (a practice, for the Florida state testing) science packet that would take him many hours. Although I admit, it is not fair to make these kids (he scored in the 99%tile on both the state mandated benchmark practice tests this year) do such a packet over the winter break, he should have known about this before the day before school was back in session!!! ARGH! He went to bed at 1:30 AM.</p>
<p>DougBetsy - We are in the same boat as you guys. DS has two weeks left of first quarter, followed by midterms Jan. 18-21, until the end of the semester. This also, will be our halfway mark and these grades will be on the transcript. It will be interesting (possibly not fun either) to see how the junior class ranks shift, now that some kids are taking multiple AP classes, which have increased weighting (and class rank is based upon weighted GPA’s). </p>
<p>I am looking forward to the night of January 22…AFTER the SAT test. It is a three day weekend here (the teachers have a planning day on Monday, the 24th to input the grades). We have tickets to take DS and D1 (D2 will be back at her college) to see the traveling production of Les Miserables. I have seen it about 4 times (it is my alltime favorite production) but DS is surprisingly cyked to see it too since he read the novel in last years honors English class.</p>
<p>Good morning everyone! Thanks for all the sympathy on the leaky kitchen ceiling! Let’s just call it user error (seiclan - you think YOUR son is spacey?) and suffice it to say S now has a choice between learning to drywall and paint and paying someone else to do it. LOL. Good news is that there is no plumbing issue or leak to fix, other good news is that my kitchen ceiling was kind of due for a fresh coat of paint anyway, so that’ll get done. Bad news = S is so spacey he can sit on the edge of the tub with the shower going for 15 minutes and not notice the water is pouring out into the bathroom and the floor is flooding. </p>
<p>seiclan - your story about the science packet could easily have happened in our house! I will say S only had to read one book over break and actually started it 4 days ago, so he didn’t have too much trouble getting through it. He plans on having a great semester - I hope he does!</p>
<p>For all of you who had kids studying for SAT’s and ACT’s over break - good job! I hope your kids get great results. S’s testing schedule looks like this - one more crack at the SAT in March, ACT in Feb or April or something, SAT II Physics in May, and 4 AP’s in the spring. I’m glad tests don’t bother him at all - I can see it being stressful for people who get test anxiety.</p>
<p>Anybody have any opinions about SAT II tests being both math/science and no humanities or social sciences? He could take Lit or Spanish but he doesn’t think he would do that great at them, so he’s planning to take Math II (already took it) and Physics. Any need to appear well rounded on subject tests, or is sticking with your strengths good enough? He plans to major in Math.</p>
<p>And yes, I’ll echo what folks here have been saying about subject tests. They aren’t just for Ivy’s and Ivy like schools, but they aren’t required by a ton of schools either. My older son had two schools on his list that required them, a couple that recommended them, and a couple that considered them if submitted. Having your S or D take them as they finish a class (Math II comes after Pre Calc and has an easier curve than Math I, which comes after Algebra 2, others somewhat correspond to AP classes) gets them out of the way fairly painlessly. My older son didn’t study for them at all and did fine.</p>
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<p>LOL! Welcome, jerseygirl (if you’ve posted before I don’t remember - sorry!) You know, Latin seems to be coming back into popularity in high schools - does your D have any interest in being a Latin teacher?</p>
<p>OK, since food poisoning has been on topic for the last couple days, here’s a story from a show I was playing in for December. Last weekend, one cast member had food poisoning, but still had to perform his feature song. He threw up backstage, but instead of aiming for the floor or trashcan…he threw up in another cast member’s hat! The hat is a key feature of the outrageous costume for her feature song.</p>
<p>seiclan - I love Les Mis too! We are seeing it for the 4th time in February. Shhh - my husband doesn’t know I’ve planned a weekend away for the two of us for his birthday, and it includes 2 tix to Les Mis.</p>
<p>PinotNoir - My son is also taking SAT 2’s in May along with his 5 AP exams. He already took the Math 2 one last June, after precalculus so he is going to take Chemistry and possibly Physics (he is in AP chem and AP Physics B this year)…I am not sure if his physics class covers enough of the SAT 2 material so we are on the fence for that exam. I believe that a kid who will major in math or science in college does not need to take a humanities/English SAT 2. </p>
<p>Most of the schools we looked at for my science oriented son wanted him to take SAT Math 2 plus EITHER chem or physics. </p>
<p>Does anyone know which is easier to do well on? Also, if he decides to take both SAT Chem and physics and does poorly on one, can he only send the better score (can you split scores taken at the same sitting)???</p>